DENVER | Main Development Thread #7

[mhays]

Most developers don't want to spend a lot of extra money on a garage just for the potential to be converted someday.

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

It’s also worth saying that trying to protect neighborhoods from dramatic change isnt a racist like i keep reading. It many cases it’s quite he opposite. Id argue your rush to displace long established neighborhoods of color is what’s actually racist. It’s easy to say more density for the people, while writing off the blacks and browns, right?

When demand for housing within a neighborhood increases, but supply remains limited, housing costs rise as demand outstrips supply. That's a fact. Many of the people who already live there can no longer afford to stay, and the people who can, move in. That's how displacement begins.

As demand continues to outstrip supply and values skyrocket, developers eventually take notice and do what developers do. "Location location location" after all. So of course gentrification and development coincide. Then it becomes easy to blame the former on the latter, but the fact is, the former starts long before, and independent of, the latter, and isn't necessarily caused by the latter, and in fact would likely only get worse should the latter never take place.

Also, this country is in a bad place right now in terms of the cultural divide and race relations. It's very worrisome. I've for the first time in my life found myself literally out on the streets, fighting bigotry like it's 1963. Here's one thing I've learned along the way: If your goal is to get a message across to the actual bigots, crying wolf is only going to hurt your cause. "Racist" is a serious fucking word that shouldn't be thrown around willy-nilly.

[Sam Hill]

Originally Posted by mhays

Most developers don't want to spend a lot of extra money on a garage just for the potential to be converted someday.

No they don't. In fact this is the first time I've ever seen or heard of it.

Nevertheless, I sure hope this is just the beginning of a trend. I'm just glad to see a developer exploring the idea and trying to make it viable.

Did no one read the article? This was not my idea.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by mhays

What a bizarre idea. If you upzone land, it can be used more intensively, typically meaning more homes can be built there.

Perhaps more to his point if you freeze a neighborhood in time ie historical preservation then it will only appeal to more of a niche group of people. For those wanting something nicer they just move on to the next neighborhood.

When Denver's Stapleton Airport became vacant land Forest Properties created a suburban-urban community that attracted buyers in droves. It's not particularly close to downtown but you could bike it. It's popularity though is indisputable.

In essence you create demand by offering what people want to live in.

My own personal preference is for Denver to try to thread the needle. Preserve what is worth preserving while allowing denser development in parts of the same neighborhood not worthy of preservation.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by laniroj

If you've never read it, I would encourage everyone to study up on Harvard's annual housing report. It's an excellent effort, fair analysis without a slant one way or the other, and it's been around for quite some time with good data tracking and trend analyses over time. According to the study, 38 million households nationwide, almost 1/3 of all households (home owners and renters) pay more than 30% of their income toward housing. Of those 38 million who are housing cost burdened, 18 million pay more than 50% of income toward housing.

^That is not ok and when people like you say everything is dandy, it really speaks volumes as to the arrogance and selfishness of a generation. People are in tough times and this is why things like Trump happen (love him or hate him). The economy has worked for every generation prior to Gen X, but it's largely not working and won't work for those who come after unless we solve the housing issue, which is totally in our control. If you don't have stable housing, you can't maintain stable employment, or income, or food, or healthcare, or health.

Haven't looked at the report yet, but will. But I'd be willing to bet a large majority of those most heavily burdened by housing costs are NOT in places that reacted by turning to Trump. I do not see that link at all. Housing affordability is largely a problem of liberal cities.

If it's only 38 million people paying more than 30%, that doesn't seem so bad. Half of those are probably in California alone. And California's problems are no mystery; there's just no political will to solve them.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by laniroj

Yep, categorically wrong. There is a massive scarcity of land in Denver. TakeFive seems to think that just because land is vacant, it means it has a willing seller and appropriate zoning. Not to mention, most of the land he probably thinks is developable is old industrial ground likely not suitable for residential due to the decades of contamination his generation poured into the ground - at least not suitable unless you spend many millions removing the soil, pumping out and treating the groundwater and then taking it all to the hazardous waste dump - haha, that's super cheap to do, just look at Gates!

What is your evidence of a massive scarcity of land? Did you see my post? We have 25-30 year buildouts projected on vacant land with the appropriate zoning. That is not scarcity. Localized scarcity only. Yes, there is a scarcity in the 15 square blocks where everybody wants to live. But there are hundreds of acres within 2-3 miles of downtown.

We have mechanisms to fund environmental remediation. We do it all the time. There are not that many sites in Denver that are in such bad shape it precludes development. If we can remediate the Coliseum Parking Lots for development - which we are doing - we can remediate anything.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

Here's an interesting data point from CREJ that I find somewhat shocking, and contrary to many of the broad discussion points on this board for years:


While more residents began renting, their share decreased. While the number of Denver renters went up by 17% in the past decade, the number of homeowners increased faster, by 21% since 2010. The share of Denverites who rent shrunk by 2% since 2010, down to 45% at the end of the decade.

The figures come in contrast with growth trends on a country level – the renter population grew two times faster than the owner population in the past decade, and the tenant share expanded by 3%, up to 34% in 2018.


https://crej.com/news/accelerated-gr...s-past-decade/


Can this be right ? Despite all the apartment construction, the population boom, and the general sense that both SFH and condo construction has not kept up with Denver's rapid growth, the percentage of persons who own vs. rent has gone UP in Denver in the last decade???

I'm really surprised. (though interestingly, the share of renters (45%) in Denver is much higher than nationally (34%), but per CREJ, it was that way here BEFORE the boom).

Even assuming they mean Denver-proper, not Denver-metro... that's probably Stapleton and GVR.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

Some very interesting points and perspective, I generally would not challenge your point about how unrealistic it is to expect developers to build "affordable" housing (unless mandated) in Denver, in this environment.

You can't mandate affordable units either. You can incentivize for them, but not mandate. People will simply leave the market if they HAVE to build affordable units which lead to them losing money. It's still a free country - unless Bernie is elected, then we'll be building commie blocks that are free for everyone!

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by TakeFive

My own personal preference is for Denver to try to thread the needle. Preserve what is worth preserving while allowing denser development in parts of the same neighborhood not worthy of preservation.

That's the sticky point. Most residents of a neighborhood will feel that they ENTIRE neighborhood is worthy or preservation and needs to be frozen in amber (which they already are thanks to current zoning) particularly in the more single family oriented areas. So you end up with a few narrow areas of change where you end up with redevelopment occurring at a far more aggressive and disruptive pace.


A solution that I strongly believe has merit is a city-wide upzoning coupled with some additional design review oversight (frontages, facade treatments, setbacks, etc.) provided by local advisory boards. Let the small neighborhood area plans guide the look of new development to maintain local individuality and flavor, but allow for the impact of growth to occur more widely across the city. Four-plexes in Curtis Park outside of the historic districts will not destroy the area.


Any city that grew by 20% in a decade will have severe growing pains, but the more you place the development solely in limited areas of change the greater the disruption will be.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by bulldurhamer

That’s some twisted logic. All land is owned. By that measure, upzoning every corner if the city would still leave you with land owned by someone, with the same “scarcity”issues.

As for for mitigation, im not even sure what you’re saying. Are you saying we need the neighborhoods to be rezoned since it’ll be cheaper to build there?

Finally I’ll repeat it once again, many if the areas being singled out already have existing row houses and such. It’s not going to be the magic bullet you think it will. Are they gonna pay millions for old row houses only to build new row houses in their place? Come on.

The land logic isn't twisted. The point is this. The City has upzoned or placed beneficial zoning on VERY FEW parts of the City. What that means is there's not enough beneficial zoning to go around for all of the demand (both from people/businesses who want more space/houses and from the capacity of the development community who wants to build more). Case in point, my company could handle about 40% more dollar volume than we currently complete, but we can't find sites or buildings to build/preserve. So, what happens, is exactly what you hate. Folks come into places like Five Points, bulldoze the neighborhoods, and build slot homes on any parcel that has that beneficial zoning. This happens precisely because the City has largely provided beneficial zoning in lower income neighborhoods (when the zoning was enacted), not higher income neighborhoods. Essentially, the City has sacrificed those areas of beneficial zoning (lower income areas) and ALL OF THE GROWTH is concentrated in those very few areas. IF land was upzoned CITY-WIDE, the intense demand for a single neighborhood would diminish and that developer and housing demand would be more evenly spread across the entire City, not just concentrated in Five Points.

If you can't understand this, then I'd be happy to sit down with you and enjoy a tamale at Curtis Park Creamery so I can explain why I think this - supply side economics - but you have to smile the whole time.

As to mitigation, huh? I'm saying TONS of vacant ground is undevelopable (for residential) because most industrial ground has contamination of some sorts. The shit companies used to get away with is absurd - 100 years of blatant pollution. Sometimes it's minimal and it doesn't affect residential development, but many times it does. MOST times it does and there is a cost associated with remediation, if you can even convince a lender to give you money when your property has a giant X on it. Sometimes, remediation isn't possible either because the ground is TOO contaminated or because the cost of remediation it is not economically feasible (even if you got the land for free). Like Gates - you could drop a rock in those monitoring wells prior to demolition and it would float on top of the sludge. Industrial development and residential development have different thresholds for ground/water pollutants/contamination. Ground has to be much cleaner for residential and there's a big cost associated with cleaning it up.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

Haven't looked at the report yet, but will. But I'd be willing to bet a large majority of those most heavily burdened by housing costs are NOT in places that reacted by turning to Trump. I do not see that link at all. Housing affordability is largely a problem of liberal cities.

If it's only 38 million people paying more than 30%, that doesn't seem so bad. Half of those are probably in California alone. And California's problems are no mystery; there's just no political will to solve them.

It's 38 million households, not people. That equates to 1/3 of Americans. That's REALLY bad. If you've never been housing cost burdened, it's hard to understand that struggle - it's kind of like homelessness, very hard to break the perpetual cycle of it.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

What is your evidence of a massive scarcity of land? Did you see my post? We have 25-30 year buildouts projected on vacant land with the appropriate zoning. That is not scarcity. Localized scarcity only. Yes, there is a scarcity in the 15 square blocks where everybody wants to live. But there are hundreds of acres within 2-3 miles of downtown.

We have mechanisms to fund environmental remediation. We do it all the time. There are not that many sites in Denver that are in such bad shape it precludes development. If we can remediate the Coliseum Parking Lots for development - which we are doing - we can remediate anything.

That's city controlled land. Is a small-time local developer really going to get a bite out of that apple versus the big buys that are going to lock up the Triangle? I don't think so. I get where laniroj is going with his assertion that there's less land available for development than on first appearance coming from a transactional market perspective.

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

What is your evidence of a massive scarcity of land? Did you see my post? We have 25-30 year buildouts projected on vacant land with the appropriate zoning. That is not scarcity. Localized scarcity only. Yes, there is a scarcity in the 15 square blocks where everybody wants to live. But there are hundreds of acres within 2-3 miles of downtown.

My evidence is in the continued increase in the cost of rental housing, for-sale housing, and commercial space. Pretty much all real estate pricing is escalating beyond any logical sense of rational growth. The fact that so many households are cost burdened, in Denver and beyond, is proof that there is a scarcity of land. We are not building enough, particularly housing and even industrial - the uncontested winner of this expansion cycle in Denver. For housing, our metro vacancy rate is below 5% (healthy) and many areas are virtual 0%, our inventory of homes for sale lingers near all time lows, all while we keep producing a relatively robust but still modest amount of new units.

We have a willing, able, and well capitalized development community in Denver. Most developers COULD build more if they could find land to do so. I do this for a living and I don't know a single one of my industry peers saying they have too much land and can't keep up, myself included. Literally not one - except Forest City. None of us can find ENOUGH land and most of us are unwilling to take on rezones unless it's a compelling project. It costs a boatload of money and time for a rezone, so why risk it when you can keep doing well while not taking undue risk (and it is undue risk now). So you tell me, where is your evidence that we don't have a scarcity of land?

[laniroj]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

...We have mechanisms to fund environmental remediation. We do it all the time. There are not that many sites in Denver that are in such bad shape it precludes development. If we can remediate the Coliseum Parking Lots for development - which we are doing - we can remediate anything.

You know, it's super easy to pass an almost $800 million bond to pay for cleanup to allow development at Nat'l Western, sure. Bad example. This is a big problem though and it's why lots of vacant, industrial-adjacent land doesn't get developed. Many lenders won't even touch that ground for industrial development.

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

Here's an interesting data point from CREJ that I find somewhat shocking, and contrary to many of the broad discussion points on this board for years:

While more residents began renting, their share decreased. While the number of Denver renters went up by 17% in the past decade, the number of homeowners increased faster, by 21% since 2010. The share of Denverites who rent shrunk by 2% since 2010, down to 45% at the end of the decade.

The figures come in contrast with growth trends on a country level – the renter population grew two times faster than the owner population in the past decade, and the tenant share expanded by 3%, up to 34% in 2018.

https://crej.com/news/accelerated-gr...s-past-decade/

Can this be right ? Despite all the apartment construction, the population boom, and the general sense that both SFH and condo construction has not kept up with Denver's rapid growth, the percentage of persons who own vs. rent has gone UP in Denver in the last decade???

I'm really surprised. (though interestingly, the share of renters (45%) in Denver is much higher than nationally (34%), but per CREJ, it was that way here BEFORE the boom).

First, I would encourage everyone to always view these types of articles with a critical eye. The article appeared in CREJ but the author is from RENTCafe, a service by Yardi, a real estate services firm, that produces click-bait-y articles. The author of the article currently lives in Romania, according to her LinkedIn profile, and her job position at Yardi is listed as "Content Marketing Specialist." Right there, this should give you pause.

Next, the article contains not a single worthy citation. Embedded within the graphics are citations of "Source: U.S. Census" but that is not sufficient. The amount of data available through the Census Bureau is staggering, and a proper citation is one that should allow the reader to go directly to the source of the data. The dozens of numbers and percentages that are tossed around in the article text have no source references provided at all, except for the paragraph about rent increases, and that citation references one of RENTCafe's previous articles. The author also uses sloppy and imprecise language throughout, a definite warning sign when reading something that throws a bunch of numbers and statistics at you.

The section of the article that seems to have piqued everyone's interest here is this one: "While more residents began renting, their share decreased. While the number of Denver renters went up by 17% in the past decade, the number of homeowners increased faster, by 21% since 2010. The share of Denverites who rent shrunk by 2% since 2010, down to 45% at the end of the decade."

Because there were no source references other than the generic "U.S.Census Bureau," I did some digging around and found the exact data tables the author used, so let's explore this a bit more.

(Before I begin, note the phrase "the number of homeowners increased faster..." This is wrong. The number didn't increase faster, the number increased by a greater percentage. This is an example of the author's sloppy use of data-related language.)

For this section of the article, the author used for the 2010 data "Table ID B25008 - Total Population in Occupied Housing Units" from the 2010 ACS 1-Year Estimates data set. For the 2018 data, the author used "Table ID B25008 - Total Population in Occupied Housing Units" from the 2018 ACS 1-Year Estimates data set. The ACS (American Community Survey) data are estimates, based on a sample the Census Bureau takes over the course of the year. As estimates, they include a Margin of Error.

Right off the bat, we have a problem: 1.) The data used are estimates with margins of error, not actual counts. The author never mentioned that in the article. 2.) The data samples were collected over the course of 2018, so the author's frequent use of "this decade" and "during the decade" is not quite correct. This is a comparison of 2010 vs. 2018, not a comparison of the entire decade through the end of 2019.

Here are the 2010 and 2018 data the author used. I obtained this from the above-referenced data sets on the Census Bureau's American Community Survey website and formatted them into these exhibits:





Please note the huge Margins of Error. This is what you get when you use ACS 1-Year data. There are also 5-Year data sets available that have lower margins of error, but the data isn't as current since it is a blend of samples taken over a five-year period.

The other thing I'll note before going on is that we have sample data with margins of error at both ends (2010 and 2018), giving us "double margins of error" comparisons. What we do have for the 2010 data is the actual Census counts for these populations from the 2010 Decennial Census. Using that for the 2010 data might have been better since it would have eliminated the margin of error at one end. I looked up this data from the 2010 Census (Table ID: H11) and found the actual "Owner Occupied" count to be 309,975 and the actual "Renter Occupied" count to be 274,202. So right here we can see that if the author had used the 2010 Census counts instead of the 2010 ACS 1-Year estimate (with its high MoE), the percentages would have been 53% Owner Occupied / 47% Renter Occupied instead of the 54% / 46% split using the ACS data.

But let's stick with the 2010 ACS estimate data since that's what the author used, and let's assume the 2010 ACS estimates were true counts, with no margin of error. This locks in the 2010 end and leaves us with only a margin of error on the 2018 side.

As you can see from the table above, the MoE for the total population in occupied housing units is relatively low, only +/- 2,294, since estimating the city's housed population is a fairly established methodology. However, the distribution of that population between owner-occupied and renter-occupied units is another thing, with huge margins of error in the +/- 11,000 range.

The Census Bureau says "the value shown here is the 90 percent margin of error. The margin of error can be interpreted roughly as providing a 90 percent probability that the interval defined by the estimate minus the margin of error and the estimate plus the margin of error (the lower and upper confidence bounds) contains the true value."

So what we could do is add and subtract 11,222 to/from the Owner Occupied number of 382,650 to explore the extremes for this number on the high and low end (while still maintaining 90% confidence), and we could add and subtract 11,175 to/from the Renter Occupied number of 318,859 to do the same. I did that and then calculated the % Total for each as well as the Difference from the 2010 numbers and the % Change:





The area in yellow is the same as the 2018 section in the first table. These are the 2018 estimates. The area in orange is where I subtracted the MoE from the Owner Occupied number and added the MoE to the Renter Occupied number to give us the extreme "Owner Low / Renter High" scenario. The area in blue is where I subtracted the MoE from the Renter Occupied number and added the MoE to the Owner Occupied number to give us the extreme "Owner High / Renter Low" scenario.

What this show us is that, using the same data that the author used and by understanding we are dealing with margins of error, we could craft three completely different narratives. The first one is the narrative the author used in the article (after cleaning up her sloppy language and fixing her subtraction error between the 2010 and 2018 percentages for Renter Occupied). The remaining two are the narratives we would have under the two "margin of error" scenarios:

Estimates Narrative: "While the number of people living in Renter Occupied units in Denver went up by 17% from 2010 to 2018, the number of people living in Owner Occupied units went up by 21%. The share of Denverites who rent decreased by 1 percentage point, from 46% in 2010 to 45% in 2018."

Owner Low/Renter High Narrative: "While the number of people living in Owner Occupied units in Denver went up by 18% from 2010 to 2018, the number of people living in Renter Occupied units went up by 21%. The share of Denverites who rent increased by 1 percentage point, from 46% in 2010 to 47% in 2018."

Owner High/Renter Low Narrative: "While the number of people living in Renter Occupied units in Denver went up by 13% from 2010 to 2018, the number of people living in Owner Occupied units went up by 25%. The share of Denverites who rent decreased by 2 percentage points, from 46% in 2010 to 44% in 2018."

Imagine the headlines we could spin depending on which of the three scenarios we chose to go with! The fact that we have such huge margins of error that can completely change the narrative, and that this was ignored entirely by the author, is unforgivable.

Also note that the author's use of "number of renters" and "number of homeowners" isn't really correct. It is "people living in renter-occupied units" and "people living in owner-occupied units" which includes children and everyone else---not just the persons on the lease or on the property deed. The author also confused percent with percentage points, a serious issue. The "share of Denverites who rent shrunk by 2% since 2010" is wrong. What the author meant was "the share of Denverites who rent shrunk by 2 percentage points since 2010" (and, as noted, the figure itself is incorrect--it is 1 percentage point, not 2).

All of this from just one section of the article. Makes you question everything else in the article, right?

[TakeFive]

Context is everything

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I do not see that link at all. Housing affordability is largely a problem of liberal cities.

If it's only 38 million people paying more than 30%, that doesn't seem so bad. Half of those are probably in California alone. And California's problems are no mystery; there's just no political will to solve them.

Nice comment. I look at data talking points and unless I'm familiar with the data and the topic, it's virtually meaningless to me.

Originally Posted by wong21fr

A solution that I strongly believe has merit is a city-wide upzoning coupled with some additional design review oversight (frontages, facade treatments, setbacks, etc.) provided by local advisory boards. Let the small neighborhood area plans guide the look of new development to maintain local individuality and flavor, but allow for the impact of growth to occur more widely across the city. Four-plexes in Curtis Park outside of the historic districts will not destroy the area.

Any city that grew by 20% in a decade will have severe growing pains, but the more you place the development solely in limited areas of change the greater the disruption will be.

Superb comment. I don't disagree.

While blanket zoning makes me a we bit nervous I've come to the point where with the provisions you describe the market can sort things out.

Originally Posted by wong21fr

That's city controlled land. Is a small-time local developer really going to get a bite out of that apple versus the big buys that are going to lock up the Triangle? I don't think so. I get where laniroj is going with his assertion that there's less land available for development than on first appearance coming from a transactional market perspective.

Yes, I had much the same thought. There are cases where two seemingly different viewpoints can both be right.

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

All of this from just one section of the article. Makes you question everything else in the article, right?

When I looked at that assertion I just laughed.

All the data that's collected and is out there means anybody can be a Stat Jockey. Whether by accident or intent there's waay too much reliance on data and it's often cherry picked for agenda based arguments. Of course politics has done this forever but it's the prodigious amounts of data in today's world that gives me a headache.

[TakeFive]

Originally Posted by laniroj

It's 38 million households, not people. That equates to 1/3 of Americans. That's REALLY bad. If you've never been housing cost burdened, it's hard to understand that struggle - it's kind of like homelessness, very hard to break the perpetual cycle of it.

Raw data has no context and context is everything.

bunt is correct in that affordability is a particular issue in liberal cities. That also overlaps with very urbanized areas.

You assume Houston style zoning will fix everything; except Houston is an example of where sprawl and urban development are equally tolerated. Like anyplace else there's high $ areas and low $ areas but overall affordability is not a problem

Urbanist that I am, more people can exist w/o cars in urban areas and that cost whether it's $9,000 or something less impacts the budget.

I won't repeat the factors which you don't want to hear since you have your own agenda.

Originally Posted by laniroj

My evidence is in the continued increase in the cost of rental housing, for-sale housing, and commercial space. Pretty much all real estate pricing is escalating beyond any logical sense of rational growth. The fact that so many households are cost burdened, in Denver and beyond, is proof that there is a scarcity of land.

Not true. You make all kind of assumptions that are not or need not be accurate.

[TakeFive]

Here's another indicator that business growth is slowing in Colorado
Feb 12, 2020 By Ed Sealover – Reporter, Denver Business Journal

New business filings are slowing and existing-business renewal filings are declining, providing further indicators that state’s booming economy may be slowing down as it moves further into this new year, according to a new report released Wednesday.

Time to panic?

“While growth has slowed slightly the last two quarters, Colorado’s economy is still strong,” Griswold said in a statement. “With optimism from business leaders on the rise, indications point to Colorado’s economy staying strong in 2020.”

I wouldn't say this is a "nothin' burger" as it continues a trend. But it could be just a pause that refreshes or it could be an indication of flattening growth.

[EngiNerd]

Originally Posted by Sam Hill

I don't see why a conversion couldn't be done as long as the garage was designed and built for future conversion. It wouldn't have low ceilings.

We already know converting an existing parking garage isn't practical, but that's not what the article was about.

Originally Posted by mhays

Most developers don't want to spend a lot of extra money on a garage just for the potential to be converted someday.

What mhays says is true, but if they know going in that they want this ability to upgrade in the future it's quite possible to build that in, but it would be quite expensive.

Garages typically have low floor-to-floor heights, sloping floors for drainage, ramps for vehicle travel to upper floors, are designed for lower loading than a typical residential/commercial floor, have less stringent deflection/vibration criteria, aren't insulated between floors, fire code travel distances are less stringent, etc. etc.

You would have to design a structure that could address all of those differences up front while at the same time keeping a relatively efficient garage for the present day so that you could actual use it today. It's not an easy or cheap task.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

What is your evidence of a massive scarcity of land? Did you see my post? We have 25-30 year buildouts projected on vacant land with the appropriate zoning. That is not scarcity. Localized scarcity only. Yes, there is a scarcity in the 15 square blocks where everybody wants to live. But there are hundreds of acres within 2-3 miles of downtown.

We have mechanisms to fund environmental remediation. We do it all the time. There are not that many sites in Denver that are in such bad shape it precludes development. If we can remediate the Coliseum Parking Lots for development - which we are doing - we can remediate anything.

It's about cost.

Scarcity is about what's on the market, not what can theoretically be redeveloped. Land gets very expensive even if development is a small percentage of the theoretical supply. This can be an exponential effect.

Remediation is expensive and brings up all sorts of risks, particularly if you're on the hook for any future spread of pollutants. Just figuring out various parties' responsibility and funding sources can be a major hurdle. We "can" but tough sites can stay empty for decades for this reason.